Prison (1988)

March 4, 1988

Film: Haunted 'Prison'

By CARYN JAMES

Published: March 4, 1988

LEAD: ''PRISON'' has a generic, low-budget name, and for once you can judge a movie by its title. This prison-drama-meets-ghost-story, which opens today at the Criterion and Movie Center 5, turns out to be an object lesson in how cheaply and badly a film can be made.

''PRISON'' has a generic, low-budget name, and for once you can judge a movie by its title. This prison-drama-meets-ghost-story, which opens today at the Criterion and Movie Center 5, turns out to be an object lesson in how cheaply and badly a film can be made.

We can predict the plot from the minute a man goes to the electric chair while a growling, nervous guard looks on. Twenty years later, a sudden phone call wakes the guard -his name, Sharpe, does not refer to his acumen - from the execution scene that haunts his nightmares. Now he's to be the warden of the very prison where that execution took place! You can almost hear the ghost of the innocent man - does anyone need to be told he was innocent? -cranking up in the wings.

He never quite enters, though, because in the film's cheapest touch the electrocuted man turns into an electric ghost. Sometimes he appears as a few blue lightning volts, and sometimes as a big blue light coming through a door. We know that's the ghost because the blue lights are always followed by very big, very bad reaction shots, as if we are watching the silliest kind of acting class exercise. Today, pretend you're a vegetable! Next class, pretend you are scared by blue light!

There are other low-rent effects, such as barbed wire unrolling itself to strangle a man. But the only hint of suspense - and it's the slightest hint - comes from the handsome convict who risks his life to save another, and goes out of his way to be kind to his fellow prisoners. What's a nice, cute guy like this doing in prison? It's easier to figure out why he's in the movie than to guess why anyone would want to watch it.
Jailhouse Ghost - PRISON, directed by Renny Harlin; written by C. Courtney Joyner, original story by Irwin Yablans; director of photography, Mac Ahlberg; film editor, Ted Nicolaou; music by Richard Band and Eddie Surkin; produced by Irwin Yablans; released by Empire Entertainment. At Criterion Center, Broadway and 45th Street; Movie Center 5, 125th Street between Powell and Douglass Boulevards. Running time: 102 minutes. This film is rated R.
Sharpe...Lane Smith
Burke...Viggo Mortensen
Katherine...Chelsea Field
Sandor...Andre de Shields
Cresus...Lincoln Kilpatrick
Lasagna...Ivan Kane
Big Sam...Tom (Tiny) Lister Jr.